Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) | Page 6

friends on earth of
that dear head
Alive, which now long since untimely dead
The wan
grey waters covered for a pall.
Their trustless reaches dense with
tangling stems
Took never life more taintless of rebuke,
More pure
and perfect, more serene and kind,
Than when those clear eyes closed
beneath the Thames,
And made the now more hallowed name of
Luke
Memorial to us of morning left behind.
May 1881.
DYSTHANATOS
_Ad generem Cereris sine cæde et vulnere pauci
Descendunt reges,
aut siccâ morte tyranni._
By no dry death another king goes down
The way of kings. Yet may
no free man's voice,
For stern compassion and deep awe, rejoice

That one sign more is given against the crown,
That one more head
those dark red waters drown
Which rise round thrones whose

trembling equipoise
Is propped on sand and bloodshed and such toys

As human hearts that shrink at human frown.
The name writ red on
Polish earth, the star
That was to outshine our England's in the far

East heaven of empire--where is one that saith
Proud words now,
prophesying of this White Czar?
"In bloodless pangs few kings yield
up their breath,
Few tyrants perish by no violent death."
March 14, 1881.
EUONYMOS
[Greek: eu mên hê timên edidou nikêphoros alkê
ek nikês onom'
esche phobou kear aien athiktos.]
A year ago red wrath and keen despair
Spake, and the sole word from
their darkness sent
Laid low the lord not all omnipotent
Who stood
most like a god of all that were
As gods for pride of power, till fire
and air
Made earth of all his godhead. Lightning rent
The heart of
empire's lurid firmament,
And laid the mortal core of manhood bare.

But when the calm crowned head that all revere
For valour higher
than that which casts out fear,
Since fear came near it never, comes
near death,
Blind murder cowers before it, knowing that here
No
braver soul drew bright and queenly breath
Since England wept upon
Elizabeth.
March 8, 1882.
ON THE RUSSIAN PERSECUTION OF
THE JEWS
O son of man, by lying tongues adored,
By slaughterous hands of
slaves with feet red-shod
In carnage deep as ever Christian trod

Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred
And incense from the
trembling tyrant's horde,
Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod,

Most murderous even of all that call thee God,
Most treacherous even
that ever called thee Lord;
Face loved of little children long ago,


Head hated of the priests and rulers then,
If thou see this, or hear
these hounds of thine
Run ravening as the Gadarean swine,
Say,
was not this thy Passion, to foreknow
In death's worst hour the works
of Christian men?
January 23, 1882.
BISMARCK AT CANOSSA
Not all disgraced, in that Italian town,
The imperial German cowered
beneath thine hand,
Alone indeed imperial Hildebrand,
And felt thy
foot and Rome's, and felt her frown
And thine, more strong and
sovereign than his crown,
Though iron forged its blood-encrusted
band.
But now the princely wielder of his land,
For hatred's sake
toward freedom, so bows down,
No strength is in the foot to spurn: its
tread
Can bruise not now the proud submitted head:
But how much
more abased, much lower brought low,
And more intolerably
humiliated,
The neck submissive of the prosperous foe,
Than his
whom scorn saw shuddering in the snow!
December 31, 1881.
QUIA NOMINOR LEO
I
What part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast,
Which hadst the world
for pasture, and for scope
And compass of thine homicidal hope

The kingdom of the spirit of man, the feast
Of souls subdued from
west to sunless east,
From blackening north to bloodred south aslope,

All servile; earth for footcloth of the pope,
And heaven for
chancel-ceiling of the priest;
Thou that hadst earth by right of rack
and rod,
Thou that hadst Rome because thy name was God,
And by
thy creed's gift heaven wherein to dwell;
Heaven laughs with all his
light and might above
That earth has cast thee out of faith and love;


Thy part is but the hollow dream of hell.
II
The light of life has faded from thy cause,
High priest of heaven and
hell and purgatory:
Thy lips are loud with strains of oldworld story,

But the red prey was rent out of thy paws
Long since: and they that
dying brake down thy laws
Have with the fires of death-enkindled
glory
Put out the flame that faltered on thy hoary
High altars,
waning with the world's applause.
This Italy was Dante's: Bruno died

Here: Campanella, too sublime for pride,
Endured thy God's worst
here, and hence went home.
And what art thou, that time's full tide
should shrink
For thy sake downward? What art thou, to think
Thy
God shall give thee back for birthright Rome?
January 1882.
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL
Not for less love, all glorious France, to thee,
"Sweet enemy" called
in days long since at end,
Now found and hailed of England sweeter
friend,
Bright sister of our freedom now, being free;
Not for less
love or faith in friendship we
Whose love burnt ever toward thee
reprehend
The vile vain greed whose pursy dreams portend

Between our shores suppression of the sea.
Not by dull toil of blind
mechanic art
Shall these be linked for no man's force to part
Nor